Reconcile a Tuition Statement with Your Student Account

Download the student-account history for the entire calendar year shown on the form. Include charges, payments, aid postings, refunds, and reversals. Keep the descriptions and transaction references. A single ending balance cannot explain what the school received during the year.

Keep separate columns for the amount charged and the amount paid. Then identify which payments relate to tuition and required expenses reportable by the institution. Room and board, transportation, insurance, and other personal costs do not become tuition-statement amounts merely because the school collected them.

The 2026 instructions for Forms 1098-E and 1098-T define the institution’s reporting categories. Preserve an “ask school” category for a bundled charge you cannot classify from its description. Avoid making the comparison balance by moving an unexplained amount into tuition.

Under the 2026 instructions, box 1 includes payments received for qualified tuition and related expenses from all sources during the calendar year, reduced by same-year reimbursements or refunds relating to those same-year payments. It is not limited to payments made directly from the student’s bank account.

The instructions also cover payment of past-due qualified tuition previously billed by the institution. This is another reason to keep the payment date distinct from the semester label. A prior semester’s balance paid this year needs to remain visible in the current-year payment review.

Do not subtract the scholarships reported in box 5 when reproducing the school’s box 1. Scholarship-funded tuition can appear in both the payment information and the scholarship information. That overlap is intentional reporting of different facts, not proof that a charge was duplicated. See box 1 and box 5 instructions.

Fictional example: In 2026, Cedar College receives $6,000 from a student loan, $3,000 from family payments, and $2,000 in scholarship funds, all applied to qualified tuition. It refunds $1,000 of those same-year tuition payments after a course withdrawal. A separate $1,500 housing payment is also on the account.

For this simplified example, the $2,000 scholarship is tracked separately for box 5. The $10,000 payment figure is not reduced to $8,000 merely to match a student’s out-of-pocket perspective, and neither number is automatically the allowable credit base.

Build a second list for scholarships and grants processed by the school. Match the award, amount processed, and any reductions. A loan disbursement belongs in the payment-source review but is not a scholarship merely because it passed through financial aid.

Review boxes 4 and 6 independently. Box 4 concerns specified prior-year tuition adjustments, while box 6 concerns reductions to scholarships or grants reported for a prior year. Do not automatically net either into the current-year box 1 bridge.

A prior-year adjustment may require reviewing the earlier return’s treatment. Keep the original statement, relevant refund or award-change record, and the current statement together. The 2025 Publication 970 rules on refunds and education benefits explain why the year and timing matter for the tax analysis.

List the dates for payments near year end and the academic period they support. The school’s posting date may differ from the date shown by the bank. Ask the school to explain which transaction it treated as received in the form’s calendar year.

For a 2026 statement, box 7 identifies whether box 1 includes payments for an academic period beginning in January through March 2027. It is a flag about amounts already reported, not a separate amount to add. The 2026 box 7 instructions specify that period.

Retain the earlier and later ledger pages when tracing a transaction across December and January. If a school reverses and reposts an item, link the two entries so the working sheet does not count both as fresh tuition payments.

Finish with three figures: the school’s reported amount, your supported comparison amount, and the unexplained difference. Label any assumptions. Ask the school about the exact transactions that account for the difference, with dates and references.

If your ledger-based review supports the statement, keep the comparison anyway. It can explain why a portal total differs. If the institution corrects the form, update the comparison and retain both versions.

The IRS education-credit guidance cautions that the form may not show the full amount relevant to a credit. Once the statement is reconciled, separately assess eligible expenses, tax-free assistance, dependency, income limits, and other benefit use for the return year.